


More Things In Heaven and Earth

by whiteblankpage



Category: Glee
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Detectives, F/F, F/M, M/M, Minor Character Death, Past Character Death, Psychic Abilities, References to Suicide, past Kurt/Blaine - Freeform, unrequited Blaine/Sebastian
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-07
Updated: 2012-09-20
Packaged: 2017-11-13 17:33:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/505993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiteblankpage/pseuds/whiteblankpage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Glee AU for Kurtbastian Week: Day Three: AU/Crossover. Det. Sebastian Smythe has enough on his plate, with his partner's return to work after a case gone sour and a high-profile missing child to find, where all of the suspects have secrets to keep. He needs a break in the case, a new lead to follow- what he gets is Kurt Hummel, Reclusive Psychic and his partner's mouthy ex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

More Things In Heaven and Earth

It took two bullet-riddled Kevlar vests, three close calls with one hellacious arsonist and four sobbing but gloriously alive vics before Sebastian pulled Blaine aside and demanded to know who his informant was.

Blaine had shuffled his feet, wrist in a brace after nearly going off the top of a building on the off- _chance_  the perp with a knife to his hostage’s neck was afraid of heights, and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Next time you can tip-toe the New York skyline while I yell at the guy from a safe distance, okay?”

Sebastian shrugged- Blaine got snippy when you pushed him too far, especially since his return to field work. He’d figure it all out eventually, make the kid buy him coffees for a week for being so damn secretive.

The mystery slipped his mind, between cold cases and paperwork, nights out with random hook-ups and days up chasing down every piece of scum a big city like New York had to offer.

Until Broadway Star Shelby Corcoran was found murdered in her classy, high-rise penthouse suite- her two-year old daughter nowhere to be found.

The station was on high alert from the moment the call came in- from a burn phone, female caller, hysterical but refused to give a name when the 911-operator asked for one.

Seventy-two hours after the first Amber Alert for Beth Corcoran, three suspects were dragged into the precinct.

Noah Puckerman.

Quinn Fabray.

Rachel Berry.

Sebastian had had the insurmountable pleasure of dragging a spitting, swearing, bleeding Noah Puckerman into Interrogation One, nearly loosing his favourite tie in the process.

Blaine had walked a calm, cool and collected Quinn Fabray into Interrogation Two, only to spend the next five hours getting nothing but her name, age and home address out of her.

Sebastian tossed a half-hearted grin at his partner as Blaine joined him to watch Mike Chang and Tina Cohen-Chang tag in to take a crack at Puckerman and Fabray respectfully. Santana Lopez was already hard at work playing bad cop with Berry.

“One of them has to know  _something_ ,” Blaine muttered, his hair curling through its gel. The 24-hour hold guarantee had worn out nearly six hours previous.

Sebastian nudged his hip, never taking his eyes off the one-way mirror before them. “Go home- get some rest. We have them for twenty-four hours before we have to lay any charges. One of them will crack.”

It wasn’t until the return of the grey light of morning, with six hours left until all three of their suspects were free to fucking _leave_ , that Sebastian received a harsh reminder of Blaine’s mysterious informant.

“Ready to crack one of these suckers?”

Blaine’s eyes were wide, his face pale as he stared up at him.

“I think we got the wrong guys.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

No one ever tried to stop Sebastian Smythe’s rampage through the precinct, his front covered in coffee as he bodily dragged his babbling partner down the nearest hallway and into their shared office.

“What the fuck do you mean you think we got the wrong guys,” Sebastian hissed, glancing quickly at the shut door. “You brought one of them in!”

Blaine bit his lip, twisting his right foot on the toe of his shiny shoe and looking all of five years old. “I just- I had a hunch? A revelation? An epiphany?-“

“Get to the point.”

“Last night. Something doesn’t add up with these three. Pcukerman’s been pissed ever since we brought him in but all he keeps doing is telling us we’re shitheads for not being out there looking for Beth and the real perp,” Blaine rattled off quickly, nearly out of breath with excitement.

“Quinn was waiting for me at the train station; she didn’t even try to run.”

“And Berry?” Sebastian didn’t like the way doubt seemed to creep in now, at the eleventh hour. “She’s been crazy all night- crying one minute, commenting on how her performance of Velma Kelly will be so much more authentic than all the other girls at NYADA the next.”

“Nothing yet but I had a friend check out Quinn and Puckerman and you wouldn’t guess who Beth’s biological parents are.”

“Shit,” Sebastian breathed, mind already clicking the pieces together. “You think they went in to get the kid and Shelby caught them?”

Blaine immediately covered his eyes with a slap of his hand and groaned, long and low. “Listen to me.  _They didn’t do it_. This is their child- can you imagine how frustrating it must be for them right now?”

Sebastian shook his head, utterly amazed that Blaine could believe the best of strangers even now. Even after Sadie. “This is the real world here. Nine times out of ten people are just  _bad_. Even parents.”

_Especially parents._

“Give me one chance to convince you,” Blaine said suddenly pulling on his partner’s jacket sleeve. “Just. I need you to meet someone. I need you to not be a judgemental dick right now and keep an open mind.”

“What-  _no_ ,” Sebastian yanked his sleeve out of Blaine’s grip, frowning at the wrinkles left there. “We don’t have time for this. Sooner or later one of them is going to lawyer up and then we’re screwed.”

“We have to let them go at the end of the day anyway,” Blaine told him, still brimming with excitement. “If I’m right it won’t matter either way.”

A short knock at the door made them both start. Santana stuck her head in, a salacious grin in place.

“Still clothed? You’re losing your touch, Smythe.”

“I didn’t think you were interested, sweetheart,” Sebastian replied with a wink. Blaine shuffled away from the pair of them, peering up at him with a pleading expression.

“Whatever, Berry’s awake and back in Interrogation Three- keeps referring to herself as Katalin Helinski,” Santana rolled her eyes. “Cap wanted you boys to take a crack at her, put Hobbit Boy’s charming good looks and dapper-ass manners to use.”

Sebastian looked back at his partner, his beseeching gaze ridiculously hard to ignore. It wasn’t often Blaine asked for help, not since he’d returned as Sebastian’s partner, cleared for field work and stone-cold sober.

“Tell Schuster we’ve got a lead we’re going to have to check out. We’ll be back before some do-good-er, public defender shows up to harass Sue into pressing charges.”

Blaine beamed.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“A  _psychic_?”

Blaine had waited until they were too far gone to turn the patrol car back around to spill the specifics on his enigmatic informant, a fact Sebastian had wished he’d demanded to know before he’d ever agreed to go on this waste of time joyride.

“Open mind, remember? Believe me, I  _know_ it sounds far-fetched but I’m telling you- Kurt’s the real deal.”

Sebastian couldn’t believe they were going to be those kind of detectives- desperate enough to drink rose water, fan around some suspicious smelling herbs and look for pictures in tea leaves. “You were confined to a hospital bed for two months- how did you have time to find a flower-headed hipster?”

“I met him at Jesse’s.”

Immediately Sebastian’s mood darkened. The months Blaine had spent attempting to drink himself to death on a shitty stool at Jesse’s bar had been the only months Sebastian had lost all contact with his partner. As much as he’s wanted to help his friend, Blaine had been determined to recover- or  _not_  recover- completely sequestered away from anyone who could have helped him.

Except, apparently, for  _Kurt_.

“You can’t honestly expect me to believe that some guy you met drunk off your ass at a bar has been polishing his Ouija board to help you solve cases,” Sebastian paused, unable to stop the lecherous smirk from spreading across his face. “Unless you’ve been polishing something else with him.”   

Blaine’s cheeks instantly flushed red as they turned down a side alley, towards a rougher, hard-up side of the city. Rain began to fall in heavy sheets, causing stragglers to hurry back inside or take shelter under the leaky eves of boarded up shop fronts.

“It’s not like that with Kurt,” Blaine said as they crawled down the cracked and spotted pavement. “Not anymore. We’re just friends now, and sometimes he’ll see or hear something that just so happens to connect to a case we’re working.” Quietly he added, “Kurt’s the one who got me into my first AA meeting.”

“I  _tried_  to help you,” Sebastian bit his cheek to keep the bitter words in check. “Whatever, the guy’s got a heart of gold. If you believe that makes him the next Miss Cleo, you’re even more of a moron that I thought.”  

“Look, he knew about the Sadie Hawkins case,” Blaine replied, hands curled tightly around the steering wheel. Sebastian’s jaw snapped shut so fast his teeth ached. Sadie Hawkins was a sore spot for his partner, the case that put him off-duty for nearly a year.

“Anyone with internet access can look up the details of that case,” he said slowly, gaze darting between Blaine’s expression and the dirty, drab apartment complexes zipping by. “Doesn’t make a guy psychic.”

Blaine shook his head, convinced his informant was legit. “Kurt knew things only the vic, the perp and myself could have possibly known, Sebastian. And the two of them are dead.”

The sound of the wipers filled the silence. There wasn’t anything Sebastian could say to that.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Kurt lived in what had to be one of the shittiest apartments Sebastian had ever seen. Graffiti covered the east and south sides of the complex, gang signatures overlapping and crossing each other out. Most windows were cracked or broken than whole, blocked up by cardboard and faded grey duct tape.

“You’d think being in touch with the spiritual world would have gotten him a fancier place, a winning lottery ticket even,” Sebastian muttered, genuinely surprised when the buzzer box  _actually_ worked.

“Shut up, it doesn’t work like that,” Blaine hissed, tapping out a familiar code without glancing at the address board. Sebastian’s belly churned at the sight.

The call connected, a scratchy, crackled voice answered hesitantly. “Hello?”

“It’s me,” Blaine said, furtively glancing around the entrance. “Buzz me up.”

A low electric hiss was the only answer as the front door popped open noisily.

“What, he couldn’t tell you’d be here?”

Blaine ignored him.

Despite the less than stellar appearance of the building’s exterior, the inside was clean if not more than worn. The carpet beneath their shoes was thin and patchy, darkened with stains and sticky with old spills. Sebastian scowled at the scratched, defaced walls as Blaine came to a sudden stop at the door of apartment 16A. This was going to be a complete waste of their time.

The door opened without a knock, and Sebastian found himself speechless.

“Oh, no,” Kurt said sternly, eying them both. “This arrangement doesn’t include other people- fuck, if I’d have known you’d start bringing back friends, I’d have left you at that bar to  _pickle_.”

Blaine grinned winningly at him. “Kurt, this is Sebastian Smythe. He’s my partner.”

The practical part of Sebastian knew that Kurt would have had to have been attractive in some sense of the word- a pretty face was a blessing in the business of conning people out of their money. He hadn’t been prepared for just  _how_  pretty Blaine’s Kurt would be; bright eyed and glaring at them in the dim light of the hallway, the pale skin of his collar bones reminding Sebastian faintly of a bird’s wing.

“He’s not invited,” Kurt’s voice, high and melodic, snapped him out of his fanciful musings. “Besides, I’ve told you everything I know. Shouldn’t you be out looking for Beth?”

Sebastian pushed aside the arm blocking the doorway, walking into the apartment as if he’d been graciously allowed inside. “Too bad I’m not a vampire- are those real too? Should we be carrying around cloves of garlic and hand-carved wooden stakes to go with our handguns and tasers?”

Blaine shuffled in behind him, his shoulders bowed with guilt. “Sorry- I had to tell him. Everyone’s so focused on Puckerman, Berry and Quinn- no one’s out actually looking for Beth.”

Kurt glanced back at Sebastian before resolutely turning his attention to Blaine. “Did you tell them about Beth’s adoption? Has anyone found the letters or emails?”

Blaine shrugged helplessly. “I didn’t really get the chance to tell anyone else. I was hoping you could convince Sebastian. The way you convinced me.”

“Yeah, Kurt, work your magic.”

Kurt took a deep, slow breath and shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way. I don’t call on ghosts or spirits or whatever you want to call them. They come to me. I’m not a medium.”

“Do you have a stage name you prefer?” Sebastian asked, catching the way Kurt’s eyes seemed to slip past him to stare hard over his shoulder. “Hey, look at  _me_ when I’m talking to you.”

Kurt’s eyes- blue in the hallway light, now ablaze in green- snapped back to meet his gaze. His shoulders straightened, jaw clenching tightly as he spat, “I’d love to but your mother’s being awfully loud right now. Exactly how long have you been walking around with her ghost on your shoulders?”

Blaine made a startled noise, immediately stepping in between Kurt and Sebastian. He panted, rubbing fretfully at his chest, where Sebastian knew the scars from his surgery sat, pink and white with age.

“He didn’t know- Kurt, I don’t think that’s the best way to go about getting Sebastian to believe you-“

“It’s not my job to convince him of anything!” Kurt said, curling a hand over Blaine’s shoulder. He reached up to still the hand on his chest. “Okay?”

Sebastian stepped forward, unable to bear being ignored by either of them. His lips curled into a smirk, dangerous and mocking. “No. I want to hear it.  _Please_ , tell me what my dear mother has been  _dying_  to say.”

Not even Blaine knew the circumstances surrounding his mother’s death. Sebastian had flown to France for the funeral while his partner had been undergoing his psych evaluations to be cleared for field work, and beyond a few probing questions Blaine had kept his curiosity at bay.  
  
No information had been released to the press and Sebastian's father had quickly put the finer details on lockdown. He couldn't possibly know anything.

Kurt slowly pulled away from Blaine, curling his hand into a loose fist and pressing it over his own chest as he stared Sebastian down. The urge to twitch under that gaze fuelled his outrage that this absolute stranger had to nerve to speak of Sebastian’s mother, of her death, as if he’d known her.

Quietly, but with a startling certainty, Kurt spoke. “She hated guns, your mother. The common man’s weapon, she used to say. So messy and unrefined. The best way to kill a man and keep your dignity was poison. That was  _her_  weapon of choice.”

Sebastian's body flashed cold.

“But you know that already,” Kurt continued, cocking his head to the side, as if he were some sort of entertaining experiment. “She hated that you became a cop, carried a gun with so much ease. You and I both know she wouldn’t even have one in the house, never mind use it on herself.”

Sebastian didn’t remember moving, until Blaine had him up against the wall and Kurt was sprawled on his ass on the living room floor, hand clutching his chest.

His voice was hoarse from screaming. “ _Fuck_  you! You think you know anything about it? You think I don’t know she wouldn’t have-“

Blaine clamped a sweaty hand over his mouth, pressing his head back against the wall.

“Sebastian, stop. Okay? Just stop. We’re going to go and you’re going to calm down.”

Kurt gingerly rose from floor, rubbing at his left shoulder. “His aim sucks for a cop.”

Blaine made a disapproving noise. “ _Kurt_ …”

“Just get out,” he said, looking impossibly tired. “I’d appreciate it if you forgot where I lived as well.”

Sebastian pulled away from Blaine’s hold, heart-pounding. His coat felt confining and hot in the dimly lit apartment, his tie a noose around his neck.

“Fuck you and your mind-games,” he snarled at Kurt as he stalked past him and back out into the hallway. Kurt didn’t flinch.

Blaine’s following footsteps echoed distantly in the back of his mind, to the rhythm of Kurt’s words.

_She’d have never used it on herself._

 

* * *

 

 

They arrived back at the precinct in time to watch Berry and Fabray walk out with three unknown men. Quinn pulled Blaine aside at the bottom of the stairs, her mouth drawn in a sad line.

“You’re never going to find her, are you?”

"Quinn..." Blaine reached out a comforting hand, only to fall short as Quinn swallowed a sob and continued down the street. The man who had to be her lawyer wrapped a firm arm around her shoulders, glaring back at the pair of them as they disappeared inside a waiting taxi.

As much as he’d hated to admit it, Blaine’s theory was beginning to look more and more like reality.

Lopez and Cohen-Chang were sprawled out in their chairs, dark-eyed and exhausted. Mike was happily devouring the last of the cold pizza slices when they returned.

“Puckerman lawyer up too?” Sebastian asked, jerking of his coat and tossing it over the back of his chair. “We saw Fabray and Berry on the way out.”

“Got a PD,” Lopez replied, picking at her nails. “Sylvester’s going to book him though- turns out he’s the kid’s real dad. They’re thinking it’s a kidnapping gone wrong. Corcoran caught him in the act and he had to off her.”

Blaine sent Sebastian a look heavy with significance. "They let Quinn go?"  
  
"Alibi," Mike said around a mouthful of pepperoni. "She didn't even get into the city until after Beth went missing."

“Where’s Puckerman now?” He asked, grimacing at the coffee stain on his shirt front. Not his most intimidating look

“Booking,” Cohen-Chang replied dully. “They’re going to ship him off to Jorken in the morning with the other transports.”

Sebastian nodded, shoving Blaine back in his seat to rest and eat before he made his way out of the office and down towards booking.

Noah Puckerman was a handsome man, if you liked the rugged, thug-type. The orange jumpsuit rarely looked good on anyone, Sebastian thought but somehow this kid could pull it off.

“What the fuck do you want now? I already told them everything I know and you’re still locking me up,” he said sullenly. The fiery, pissed off little shit Sebastian had dragged kicking and screaming into the place was gone, diminished somehow.

With a careless toss, he threw a scarred leather wallet onto the table between them, picking up on the wary way Puckerman eyed it.

“Found something interesting hidden in tear of the liner,” Sebastian said airily. He pushed a faded, creased picture of Beth across the table top. “Cute kid, Puckerman.”

“It’s Puck,” he grunted, cuffs clanking noisily as he ran a slow hand over his head. “I already told ‘em she’s my girl, okay? You’re all too busy feeling so fucking pleased with yourselves, no one’s even out looking for her.”

Sebastian frowned. “She’s  _not_ your ‘girl’- you signed away any parental rights you had to her two years ago.”

Puck scoffed, his mouth pulled back in a sneer. “No fucking court of law is going to tell me what’s mine. I might have signed her away for a better life than I could’ve ever given her but I sure as hell never stopped thinking of her as mine.”

Sebastian looked down at the picture, the edges smooth from caressing fingers and daily travel in the tinest, most secret part of some punk’s wallet. Puck picked it up, rubbing over Beth’s face with the pad of his thumb for a long quiet moment. Slowly, Sebastian watched him lay it back down onto the table top with a final, miserable resolve. 

“You keep that,” Puck said, pushing the picture back into Sebastian’s hand. “You keep it and you pull it out every damn day my little girl’s out there somewhere and not back safe.  _You_ remember her face because  _I_ won’t forget.”

“We’re done here!” he shouted at the door. “Take me back to my cell.”

Sebastian sat a moment alone in the interrogation room, fingers tracing the same tattered lines as Puck’s before he folded the picture and tucked it safely into his own wallet. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is some description of a crime scene in this part. Also the death of a main character from the show but a minor character in the story.

More Things In Heaven and Earth

 

Sebastian was surprised to find out that figuring out exactly who Kurt E. Hummel was involved nothing more than googling his name.

The only son of Burt Hummel, Congressman and business mogul up until his death nearly eight years ago, Kurt had all but disappeared from the headlines after that. CPS had shown up at the boy’s house to find all of his pictures and keepsakes missing, along with Kurt himself.

The police report went on to note that Kurt had been quietly labelled as ‘found’ in the system, his accounts unfrozen and neatly filed away without much fuss a week after his eighteenth birthday. Sebastian closed down the file with a huff, rubbing hard at his eyes. The idea that Blaine’s psychic friend was running a money-making con was quickly becoming less and less of a possibility.

Three days had passed since the confrontation with Kurt, since Puck pushed that picture into Sebastian’s hand and demanded he find his daughter and Beth Corocran was still just as missing as she’d been at the beginning of the week.

The case was already running cold, even as DA Sylvester pushed forward with her plans to prosecute Puck for the crimes. Only Sebastian and Blaine knew that there was a possibility that the man they’d sent to Jorken Pen was innocent.

And Kurt.

With a click of his mouse, Sebastian found himself bringing up another file, one he’d memorized from the typo in paragraph two to the double period in the last sentence.

Elaine Chevalier.

COD: Self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. 

“She hated guns,” Sebastian muttered, leaning forward to rest his chin on his hand. His eyes scanned over the file again, just to be sure.

He’d been instantly suspicious, from the moment his aunt had called, hysterical and heart-broken from Paris.

_“She’s gone, sweetheart. She’s gone! Elaine_ _.”_

_“How? No- are you sure?”_

_“Yes, I saw the body. She shot herself. I can’t believe this, I didn’t even know she owned a gun!”_

_“She doesn’t. She wouldn't.”_

He’s flown to France on the red-eye, bullied his way onto the crime scene and saw with his own eyes the blood splatter, the locked door and the gun.

Fingerprint and DNA analysis had revealed nothing more than Elaine's hand, a blood alcohol level double the legal limit and her smoking gun. With no evidence to point towards foul play, the case had been quietly filed away under ‘suicide’ and forgotten.

The turn of the doorknob had him closing down the file before he could rightly think about it, turning a bland look towards Blaine as he entered with a winning smile.

“Any news?”

“Artie’s working on her laptop as we speak but everything’s been wiped clean and there's some liquid damage,” he said, flopping back into his computer chair with a sigh. “I’m calling in on a favour he owes me but other cases are piling up for the techs so who knows how long it’ll take us to get anything back.”

“The search for Beth?”

Blaine shrugged. “Schue’s got Chang and Cohen-Chang going through Puckerman’s place with CSI but other than that….”

He trailed off sadly but Sebastian had been a detective long enough to know the stats on missing kids and their return.

A familiar silence settled down on the office, heavy but not unbearably so, as Blaine shuffled in his chair and cleared his throat.

Sebastian knew that tell well.

“Don’t.”

“We can’t just never talk about it,” Blaine replied calmly. “It’s just going to sit in the corner of the room, this big ghostly elephant following you around until you can’t take it anymore and you-“

“Try to drink myself stupid in a hole-in-the-wall bar like you did?”

Blaine’s expression closed off, tight and upset. Sebastian watched his hand slip into his left pocket- the one he knew held his partner’s six-months sober chip.

“I’m an ass.”

“You are,” he agreed without protest, “I also know how much you adored your mother. And that when you might have been willing to let me help you, I couldn’t.  And I’m sorry.”

“You couldn’t help getting fucking shot in the chest, Blaine,” Sebastian said sternly. “Jesus  _fuck_.”

“Which is why,” he continued, talking over Sebastian with the same single-mindedness that always seemed to get him in trouble. “I’m trying to help you now.”

Sebastian tried hard to convey exactly what he thought of that idea with a single look.

Blaine serenely ignored him.

“Kurt said- I mean, your mom- did she-“

“Your way with words is outstanding.”

“Kurt doesn’t think your mother committed suicide,” he blurted out, wincing as he took a peek at Sebastian’s expression. “You agree don’t you?”

“I know she didn’t kill herself because I know my own mother,” Sebastian retorted, “not because some wide-eyed junkie with a head full of mystic bullshit thinks he can channel my mother’s spirit.”

Blaine’s taken aback expression was more than enough to cool his ire at Kurt’s ballsy ‘predictions’- lashing out at his partner was never a fun experience for Sebastian; Blaine had an air of innocence and well-meaning sincerity about him at any given time. Snapping at Blaine did nothing more than rack up Sebastian’s already impressive bad karma.

“I was angry too, you know.”

Blaine’s toes dragged against the carpet just enough to allow him to twist and turn his chair. Sebastian eyed his partner warily- gaze down, one hand clenched over the arm rest as he spoke, his brows set in a determined furrow.

“I’m not even sure what Kurt was doing at Jesse’s that night- he’s really not a people person,” Blaine said with a small smile. “He just walked up to the alleyway I’d fallen into for the night and said “She said you’d be here” and dragged me to my feet.”

Sebastian rolled his eyes. “Let me guess- a ghost told him.”

“I’d assume. I mostly just thought he was going to take my wallet, not bring me home and sober me up.”

“I get what you’re trying to do here but I don’t believe in ghosts or psychics or messages from the afterlife,” Sebastian said plainly. “Come on, man. You know how these guys operate- they read your body language, use words and phrases so general, they could apply to anything in your life. Like a walking, talking horoscope.”

“And the fact that your mother hated guns?” Blaine challenged, sitting forward. “We were barely there fifteen minutes. I’ve never even told him about you.”

Sebastian kept his expression blank, despite the sting of those words. Everyone in his life knew about Blaine, most even assumed partner meant every sense of the word.

Kurt had never even known of him until that night.

“Kurt told me there was nothing I could have done to change what had happened in that basement,” Blaine said, his voice low and hushed. “That I needed to let go of the guilt because no one blamed me, and that Sadie couldn’t move on until I did.”

Sebastian bit the tip of his tongue once, a bad habit from his childhood resurfacing. “And what did you say?”

A sheepish flush spread across Blaine’s cheeks as he chuckled. “You know what I’m like when I’m drunk- I’m either horny as hell or I’m all  _rage against the machine_. I was pretty damn determined to drink myself into the darkest hole available and never come out, to just die with my guilt like I should have done in that basement. Then Kurt comes along and out of nowhere absolves me of that? Who did this guy think he was?”

“Don’t tell me you  _slept_  with him?” Sebastian asked in disbelief. Blaine had never been a guy comfortable with one-night-stands. He liked the connection, the intimacy, the build-up just as much as he liked the sex. If all it would have taken to loosen the lock on Blaine’s zipper was a few drinks, Sebastian would have fucked him years ago.

“Hardly. I was angry, depressed and yeah,  _guilty_. I decked him.”

A sudden, stunned bark of laughter burst out of Sebastian at that. It took a lot to make his partner angry- it was one of the reasons why they seemed to work so well together, Sebastian ran extremes; hot and cold when the occasion called for it.

Blaine was always steadfast and annoyingly tranquil, taking everything life threw at him until he exploded.

“Yeah, laugh it up- Kurt knocked me out with a stainless steel pot. Made me take a shower in the morning and even when I kicked in his front door and stormed out, he found me again the next night. Different bar, same mess of a man,” he shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe that had been his life.

“There wasn’t anything you could have done,” Sebastian said after a quiet moment. “The FBI nerds profiled Michael Wayne as someone who wouldn’t surrender. Back-up was twenty minutes out when you found him with a knife at Sadie’s neck. The front door was  _booby-trapped_. He didn’t just want to go out with a bang- to be remembered- he wanted to take as many people as he could with him.”   

Blaine’s smile was small and self-deprecating. “You sound like Kurt.”

Sebastian rolled his eyes and threw a paper ball at him. “Stop it. Get back to work.”

Just like that, the moment was gone and things were back to the way they’d always been. Before he could think about it, Sebastian’s fingers flipped open his wallet to pull out the picture of Beth.

_You keep that,_  Puck has said, convinced Sebastian would forget his daughter was out there in the world, with nothing more than the monster that had taken her.  _I won’t forget._

_Neither will I_ , he promised.

 

* * *

 

 

It was nearly a week later- Sebastian had pulled that picture out every morning, thumbing over Beth’s round-cheeked grin every time- when Blaine set an extra large, steaming cup of the best coffee around down on his desk and said, “so.”

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to say!”

“Whatever it is, the answer’s  _still_  no,” he said firmly, taking a large, scalding gulp of the coffee. Made to perfection, in the typical ‘Blaine wants a favour’ fashion.

“I was wondering, I mean- Kurt texted me this morning-“

“Are you  _kidding_  me?” Sebastian put a hand to his mouth, nearly spitting the delicious, perfect, traitorously delivered coffee all over his desk. “Did you forget our last visit with that nutcase?”

“He’s not a nutcase- oh my  _God_ , will you stop being an ass about this?” Blaine demanded, a hand on his hip. “So you don’t believe-  _fine_. I do and I’m asking you to respect that and come with me. Either way I’m going to see him-with or without you.”

“The hell you are,” Sebastian muttered, shutting down his computer and grabbing his coat and coffee cup. “I remember what happened the last time I let you go off alone.”

“Kurt isn’t a serial killer.”

“ _Yet_.”

“You’re impossible, first he’s a fake then he’s a drug addict and a nutcase, now he’s a potential serial killer,” Blaine pointed out, striding quickly through the stragglers in the hallway. “He can’t win with you.”

“Well maybe if he predicted the winning Super Lotto numbers for this week’s jackpot I’d be more inclined to give him a second chance,” Sebastian replied. “Give up this life of crime fighting and retire.”

Blaine pulled a face at the elevator, as if realizing he’d made a crucial error in judgment.

“Oh crap, Kurt’s not going to be happy to see you.”

 

* * *

 

 

True to his prediction, Kurt answered the door holding a zebra-printed broomstick and a dark expression.

“No, Blaine. I distinctly remember telling you to come  _alone_.”

“Hey, looks like you were right- he isn’t happy to see me,” Sebastian cupped his mouth with one hand and stage-whispered, “looks like his dick wasn’t the only thing that rubbed off on you.”

Kurt’s cheek flooded crimson as Blaine stomped rudely back on his foot.

“Kurt, he’s my partner. We all want the same thing here- to find Beth,” Blaine looked pleadingly at them both. “Can we just put our differences aside and talk about why you called me?”

Kurt’s eyes quickly darted up to catch Sebastian’s gaze, challenging and annoyed. He watched as slowly those strange-coloured eyes began to drift off to stare intently into the space over Sebastian’s shoulder.

The space he knew for certain was empty and uninteresting.

With a sudden, startled jump Kurt squeezed his eyes together tightly for a moment before stepping back to show them the inside of his apartment.

“ _This_  is why I called you.”

The floor was littered with broken glass.

Light bulbs still stuck in their sockets had exploded, dishes both clean and dirty had cracked and covered the kitchen tiles. Even the television screen and living room windows had spider-webbed fissures through their surfaces.

“Watch your step,” Kurt muttered, leaving the door open as he crunched across the glass to finish sweeping at the only clean patch of carpet in the whole living room.

“Did someone break in?” Sebastain asked, closing the door behind him as they stood awkwardly in the kitchen. Blaine shook his head and went to go find an extra broom or dustpan.

Kurt stopped sweeping, broomstick held tightly to his chest. “Shelby Corcoran is not happy that Noah has been arrested, a fact she has graciously let me know every night this week.”

“You expect us to believe a  _ghost_  did all this?”

 “I don’t expect  _you_ to believe anything,” Kurt replied briefly, giving Blaine a long look. “Have the two of you at least looked into the letters and emails I mentioned? Or are you just as content as the rest of the city to see Puckerman go to jail for a crime he didn’t commit?”

“Are you always this bitchy or is today-“

“I have a techie friend of mine going through Shelby’s computer,” Blaine said over him, trying in vain to use a mop to herd the glass in the kitchen together. “Shelby was paranoid about something though- she wiped the thing constantly. It also suffered some damage from the attack.”

Sebastian grimaced. Blood splatter damage was never fun to find.

“And the letters?”

“CSI and a dozen detectives limbed out Shelby’s place,” he replied with a frown. “There aren’t any letters, Nostradamus.”

Instead of worry or embarrassment, Kurt shook his head with a stern certainty. “No, she specifically said emails  _and_  letters. You can’t have checked everywhere.”

“I’ve seen her place, Kurt,” Blaine said slowly, bending to scoop up a pile of glass. “'Limbed' is putting it lightly.”

“Did she have any other residences?”

“Also been checked.”

“Look, I’ll say what everyone’s obviously thinking- there’s no letters,” Sebastian shrugged. “Artie’s going to crack her computer open and find- I don’t know, surprise animal porn or nude photos and this will all just be a colossal waste of time.”

“Just because you haven’t found something, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist,” Kurt insisted, “You just haven’t found them yet.”

“Well enlighten me, O Wise One- where should we look next?”

“Gee, I don’t know- where do you usually find letters? How about a  _mailbox_!” Kurt spat before stalking over to take the dustpan back from Blaine’s suddenly slack fingers.

Sebastian shared a look with his partner, stunned. Neither of them had thought to look at the rows of silver boxes that had lined the wall of Starsview Tower’s lobby. A mailbox for each apartment.

 Blaine awkwardly tried to rest the mop handle back against the wall. “Um, will you be alright-do you want us to stay and help-“

Kurt sighed irritability at him. “Just go.”

They quickly crunched over the glass and out the door.

 

* * *

 

 

Sebastian stared down at the copied letters on his desk, amazed to have finally found another lead in the case and absolutely frustrated that Kurt had been right.

“So, CSI confirmed that there were about fifteen more empty envelopes like the ones these letters are in, in a desk drawer in Shelby’s bedroom,” Santana said, leaning against the doorjamb with a frown. “She had a stalker.”

“A stalker that was interested in her  _kid_ ,” Blaine pointed out, his grin somewhat manic. “Look at this:  _you know what happens when you take something that doesn’t belong to you? Someone takes it back_.”

“Beth’s adoption was legal though, wasn’t it?” Sebastian asked, clicking through the pages of the report rapidly. “All the paperwork looks in order.”

“This doesn’t mean that Puckerman didn’t do it,” Santana pointed out, “taking back his kid sounds a lot like the guy we brought in.”

“They’re all post-marked from New York state- didn’t Puck say he worked out of state with his pool cleaning business when he had to? Worked as a delivery guy for a while?” Blaine asked, thumbing through the plastic-wrapped envelopes. “Is there anyway we can check on his whereabouts on the dates these were delivered?”

“I’m on it, short-stuff,” Santana said, whirling away from the doorway.

Blaine turned to grin at Sebastian, his delight fading at the dark, contemplative look on his partner’s face. “What now?”

“Puck’s not the only one who fits that description,” he said slowly, unsure just how protective Blaine was of Quinn Fabray. Willowy blondes with sad histories had to be a trigger of some sort. “Beth still has a mother out there, alive.”

“ _Quinn_? You think Quinn did this?” He shook his head, adamant. “No, you saw her that day, she was-“

“She was oddly subdued for someone who’d just been brought in for questioning about the murder of her daughter’s adoptive mother,” Sebastian said, tapping his fingers against the letters. “She knew not to say a word until her lawyer was present.”

“She was upset that her daughter was missing!”

“Beth isn’t her daughter.” The words were hard to say, in the face of the picture in his wallet. “Legally, Quinn has no right to Beth- it was obvious you felt for her. She played you that day on the steps, Blaine.”

“You’re the most cynical man I have ever met,” Blaine said woodenly, “do you ever see the good in anyone?”

_You_  Sebastian thought, curling his hands into tight fists.  _Sometimes I can still see the good in you._

Blaine looked away, as if he could hear the unspoken words. They kept their silence, at odds with what they believed to be true.

“What do we have to do now?”

Sebastian sighed, hating how this was going to hurt his partner.

“We have to go talk to Quinn.”

 

* * *

 

 

Quinn Fabray was not a native of New York. Her lawyer was reluctant but powerless when they’d demanded to know where she was spending the rest of her stay in the city and gave them the address and room number of a nondescript hotel startlingly close to Shelby’s old home.

“Get Santana to look into Quinn’s financial records,” Sebastian muttered as they nodded at one of the many staring hotel guests loitering around the front of the lobby. “Yale isn’t cheap but I hardly doubt a middle-class girl from out of state can afford both college and a long stay in New York City.”

“I’ll call her now.”

Getting a key from the front desk proved to be easy with a flash of his badge, the staff nearly falling over themselves to be accommodating yet predictably clueless. A fresh-face boy followed them up to the twenty-second floor, babbling nervously with a thick Irish accent.

“Rory,” Blaine said, phone still trapped between his shoulder and his ear. “It’s fine. We’re just bringing her in for questioning. This isn’t a bust or a shoot out. You’re going to be fine.”

“Oh Thank Lord,” Rory said, relieved. “You don’t know my ma- she’s a crier. Useless at funerals and weddings and christenings and watching her afternoon love shows-“

“Zip it,” Sebastian said shortly, undermining all of Blaine’s reassurance as he pulled his gun from its holster. Rory made a pained noise. “Blaine, call back-up. There’s blood on the door.”

Four red smears in the shape of fingers, on the edge of the door were hardly visible to anyone just walking by. The dark wood of the door itself- shiny and cared for- had Blaine squinting to catch sight of the blood for himself.

“Dispatch? We’re going to need back-up at…”

Sebastian let Blaine’s voice fade away as he waved Rory back against the wall and slowly toed the door open with the tip of his shoe.

“Jesus Christ,” he swore softly, getting a glimpse of the room. “Blaine, cancel the bus- we’re going to need CSI up here and a coroner. She’s dead.”

Before he could move, Blaine had shoved his way into the room, nearly skidding to a halt at the sight of the bloody mess. He moaned once, low and wounded.

“She looks- she looks like-“

Sebastian pulled him back from the scene, turning his entire body away with him. “Don’t look. Just get back on the phone with dispatch and don’t look, okay? It’s  _not_  Sadie. It’s Quinn.”

Blaine looked up at him, pale-cheeked and wild-eyed. “You think that makes it any  _better_?”

Sebastian waited until he was preoccupied with answering dispatch before he returned to check out the body himself.

The overkill on this attack was sickening- Shelby had been shot no less than seven times in the chest and face. Quinn’s arms showed signs of multiple defensive wounds, her light dress torn at the waist and shoulder. One wrist appeared broken, discoloured and turned at a gruesome angle where she had fallen to the floor.

The clean slices at the backs of Quinn’s ankles, the duct tape over her mouth- she couldn’t have gotten away and no one would have heard her scream.

“The other rooms,” Sebastian said, looking at the walls. “Ask the kid in the hall if anyone reported hearing any noise coming from this room.”

Blaine didn’t move. He turned, brows furrowed and cautious. “Blaine?”

“Sebastian,” Blaine replied dully, back curled away from the grisly sight. “Kurt texted me.”

Amazed and more than a little leery, Sebastian stepped back to peer at the message over his partner’s shoulder.

_‘There’s a ghost claiming to be Quinn Fabray sitting in my living room.’_


	3. Chapter 3

 

Despite what the television shows made it look like, discovering a dead body meant overtime. Schue wanted to know who gave them to go ahead to continue working the case, DA Sylvester was buzzing the hell out of every cell phone she could reach and Santana was swearing vengeance on both of their asses if she got written up for helping them.

 

The coroner- a tall, lanky guy by the name of Joe, with a head full of dreads as long as Blaine was tall- slapped his hands together quietly as the ominous black bag was rolled out of the hotel room.

 

“COD’s pretty obvious,” he said, shaking away a stray dreadlock. “Gunshot wound to the head. Then again, a more thorough look might tell me exsanguination- the room’s a _mess_ , dude.”

 

“Think you’ll get any prints off the duct tape?” Sebastian asked, keeping an eye on Blaine. His partner had barely said a word since back-up had arrived, only speaking when directly spoken to.

 

“It’s a possibility,” Joe said, “CSI’s got it now. I’ll send any bullets up to ballistics. It’ll take a couple of days but I’ll make sure you’re pinged when I get the official report out.”

 

“Thanks,” Sebastian said absently, watching as Schuester approached Blaine, clapping him on the shoulder as he bent in close to speak with him. “I gotta go.”

 

“Peace out, bro.”

 

“Good man,” Schue said briskly, that weird smile curling his lips. Sebastian pulled a face behind his back, nearly making Blaine choke as he caught sight of it.

 

Schue turned and frowned. “Smythe.”

 

“Captain,” he nodded formally. “Done with my partner for the evening?”

 

“He’s all yours,” he replied, “I’ll be expecting a report on my desk tomorrow morning.”

 

“Of course,” Sebastian grinned so hard his cheeks hurt as they watched their Captain walk off. “I’ll set it right next to the big, steaming pile of Fuck You I’m about to leave on your desk tonight.”

 

“Sebastian!” Blaine’s cheeks flushed as he looked around the hotel hallway anxiously. “You’re going to get yourself written up one day and I’m going to laugh at you.”

 

Sebastian snorted. If anything he knew his partner would be in Schue’s office, trying every way possible to sweet-talk Sebastian out of trouble. Some days he wondered why Blaine wasn’t a lawyer or a tiny side-kick to a tragic super-hero.

 

 “Ready to get out of here?” He asked, shoving his hands in his coat pockets as they started down the stairwell. Blaine paused at the top, biting harshly at his lip.

 

“There’s something I have to do first, I told the Captain I’d take care of it.”

 

Sebastian motioned for him to carry on, tired and eager for the results the next day would have to offer them.

 

“Quinn listed ‘Judy Fabray’ as her next of kin. Her mother,” Blaine said, gripping the railing hard. “I said- I want to be the one to tell her Quinn’s gone.”

 

“ _Blaine_ -“

 

“By the time I got out of the hospital, Sadie had already been in the ground for _weeks_ ,” he said quickly, firm. “The least I can do is get this one right.”

 

“I can do it.” Sebastian hadn’t even thought about informing the family- it was a job he’d left behind when he’d become a detective. “I got this, just go home.”

 

“I want to,” Blaine was adamant. He stepped down a couple of stairs, taller than Sebastian for once. “There is something you can do for me.”

 

“Anything.”

 

Hindsight was about to bite him in the ass. 

 

“Go check on Kurt for me?” Blaine pulled his cell out of his pocket as Sebastian groaned irritably. “His texts are becoming increasingly incoherent and he hasn’t answered any of my calls.”

 

“I should arrest him under suspicion of _committing_ murder,” he pointed out. “Possibly kidnapping Beth. Doesn’t any of this strike you as odd?”

 

“You know it doesn’t,” Blaine said, suddenly sombre. “Sebastian, please. If you don’t I’ll only head on over there after I’m done talking to Judy Fabray. Who knows how long that’ll be. We have to be in early enough to report back to the Captain.”

 

“And I’ll feel like an ass for making you stay up past your bedtime,” Sebastian finished, knowing when he’d been defeated. “Fine. You’re lucky you’re cute.”

 

* * *

 

There was just enough time between driving from the hotel where Quinn’s body had been found to finally parking his late model Bentley in front of Kurt’s apartment building to talk himself out of marching in there and arresting him on sight.

 

Too much added up with him- the timing between arresting Puck and Blaine’s sudden doubts, the certainty that all three of the only suspects in the case were innocent, not only knowing about the letters but knowing exactly where they would be. Quinn’s murder and the impeccable timing of that text.   

 

Had it been anyone else, Sebastian would have already had them in handcuffs.

 

“And yet…” he muttered to himself. The New York skies had opened up on the city, flooding the streets with slippery, dirty water that splashed and splattered messily against Sebastian’s pant legs. He hit the buzzer for 16A a little harder than necessary.

 

No answer.

 

“Son of a bitch, I’m going to kill him,” Sebastian snarled into the speaker system and tried again.

 

Nothing.

 

He shook the door handle, frustrated and more than a little murderous. Never again was he doing a favour for anyone. Kindness was overrated.

 

“Um, dude? Do I need to call the cops?”

 

Sebastian glared over his shoulder at the interruption, immediately taking in the young man waiting to get inside. Tall and fit if the way he filled out those ridiculously tight star-spangled pants was any indication. He looked like a picture perfect all-American boy, right down to the shock of bright blond hair and do-gooder frown.

 

“I _am_ the cops,” he said, flashing his badge.

 

Immediately the frown was replaced with a guilty shuffle. He peered goofily out at Sebastian from behind his too-long bangs. “What seems to be the problem, officer?”

 

“Checking up on a…friend. Of my friend,” he smiled charmingly at the guy’s disbelieving look. “He’s not answering the buzzer, I figure he’s probably passed out on the couch somewhere.”

 

Nervous hands came up to play with the flip of blond hair. “I could probably let you in, I guess. Who are you looking for?”

 

“Apartment 16A.” There was no way Sebastian was telling this guy who he was looking for. Not in this neighbourhood.

 

A brilliant, outrageously sunny smile broke out over the guy’s face. “Kurt? You’re a friend of his?”

 

“Yes.” Sebastian couldn’t believe his luck. Even strangers on the street were fond of this guy. “Blaine sent me?”

 

“Blaine! Mercedes was kind of heart-broken when he moved out a while ago,” he said, hitching his bag higher onto his shoulder before he offered out his hand. “I’m Sam. I live in 8B with my wife.”

 

“Sebastian,” he said, shaking the hand with a smile. Sam was infectiously good-natured, a trait Sebastian usually detested in people of all ages. Still, he found himself grinning slightly as Sam opened the front door, talking endlessly about his beautiful wife and her amazing voice.

 

“She’s been trying to break out into the music business for a few years now,” he said eagerly, walking towards the elevator and nearly tripping over his feet. “She sings at a club not far from here during the weekends and I um, dance.”

 

He had no doubt Sam did a little more than just dance with the flush on his cheeks and the sequins on his pants. Still, Sebastian nodded gamely. “I’ll have to meet Mercedes for myself one day.”

 

“Have Kurt bring you up,” Sam suggested, holding the elevator door open with his elbow. “He doesn’t get out much but he’ll visit Mercedes if she asks. They’re _really_ close.”

 

“I’ll go bug him about it now.”

 

Sam grinned cheerfully at him, waving as the elevator door slid shut. “See you then!”

 

Immediately, his own smile dropped. Sebastian didn’t care how cheerful Kurt’s friends were- this bullshit had gone on long enough.

 

He rapped hard on the peeling paint of the door, ignoring the way unit 14A yelled for him to keep it down. “Kurt! Open up!”

 

The door stayed firmly shut.

 

With the bottom of his fist, Sebastian pounded hard against the wood, the skin stinging and hot. “ _Kurt_! Hummel!”

 

His hand dropped to the doorknob, old and bent, as if someone had tried to kick it in before. An experimental twist of his wrist let the door swing open under his hand.

 

“Hummel, you’re going to get yourself murdered if you keep that door unlocked at this time of-“ Sebastian stopped as he walked into the darkened apartment, the flickering light above the stovetop the only glow in the entire room.

 

“Kurt,” he said, unclipping his gun from his holster. “Hummel? Answer me.”

 

The apartment was astonishingly cold for the time of year, the air quiet and sterile and empty. The stovetop light flickered as Sebastian eased into the kitchen, a broken jar in a puddle of dark liquid catching his eye.

 

Crouching, one hand still on his gun, Sebastian dipped the tip of his finger into the mess on the floor, mindful of the broken glass. It was cold, neither thick nor all that different from water, and smelled oddly of peaches.

 

The apartment’s temperature plummeted sharply as Sebastian rose to his feet. A desperate, choked noise from the only bedroom broke the silence. Sebastian’ throat tightened with fear as he caught sight of darker droplets leading towards the barely closed door.

 

The room was darkened, lit only by the light of the open curtains and the shuddering flame of a trio of tea candles on a nightstand in the corner.

 

 Kurt was shivering on the bed, a thin ratty-looking pillow pressed over his head. Sebastian spared a quick look around for an intruder, some kind of culprit, before he holstered his gun and surged towards the bed.

 

“Kurt-fuck!” He reared back as he pulled the pillow away to see Kurt’s face, smeared with blood. “Shit, I’m calling an ambulance.”

 

Kurt whined high in his throat, eyes scrunched up as he tried to curl into a tighter ball. His arms were covered in goose bumps, lips pale and blue-tinted. The bedroom felt like an icebox.

 

He looked half-dead, even as Sebastian grabbed his shoulder and rolled him onto the back. “Hey, hey. Wake up. Tell me- who did this? What happened? Are you sick?”

 

Kurt groaned softly, blinking up at him in a daze. His cheeks and chin were coated in flaking patches of dried blood, even as the immediate flow from his nose seemed to have stopped. He reached up to tug weakly at Sebastian’s wrist, wiping his nose with his other hand.

 

“No. I’m fine. She’s gone. She’s gone. Oh, I’m _disgusting_.”

 

Sebastian backed off as Kurt pushed himself up, squinting at his bloody hands. “What happened? Did you see who did this?”

 

“No one did this- why are you even here?” Kurt hooked his pinky into the handle on the bedside table and pulled out a few tuffs of tissues. “What time is it?”

 

“It’s nearly two am,” Sebastian bit out, his fingers flexing at the cresting wave of adrenaline slipped out of his body. He wanted to get home, fall into bed and not deal with this right now. “Blaine sent me to check on you when you stopped texting him back coherently. You wouldn’t answer the buzzer and when I got to the door, it was unlocked.”

 

“Blaine? Why didn’t he come himself?” Kurt asked, momentarily stumped before his eyes widened and he scurried off of the bed. Sebastian gripped his arms tightly as he swayed. “Quinn. She was here. She’s dead.”

 

Sebastian took in the bloody face, wild-eyes and rumpled hair, with a growing unease. “Yes. She’s dead. Mind telling me how you knew that and why you had a bloody nose?”

 

He couldn’t kick the idea that Kurt was pulling a fast one on them- that maybe he’d taken out Quinn to prove himself worthy.

 

From the outraged, horrified expression on his face, Kurt understood exactly what he wasn’t saying.

 

“As a _spirit_ , you pinhead. I get bloody noses sometimes. Especially when a ghost is too intense, or there are multiple spirits.” He wrenched himself out of Sebastian’s grip with a particularly catty glare.         

 

“You think you were bleeding out of your face because a ghost leaked it’s feelings all over you? Most people would schedule a doctor’s appointment- not assume they can communicate with the dead.”

 

“I’ve been to a doctor and I’m fine! I’m _not_ crazy or sick,” Kurt shouted at him as he wobbled off towards the bathroom. “I also have an alibi for the entire afternoon, in case you were hoping to indulge in your amazing ability to arrest innocent people.”

 

Sebastian glowered hard at the red-brown stain of blood on Kurt’s bed before he realized that he was standing alone in the man’s bedroom and quickly stalked out to scowl around the unlit living room.

 

At least the glass was gone.

 

Flicking the light switches revealed why.

 

“Do you just sit in the dark and think up more horrible ways to prey on the hearts and minds of vulnerable drunks now? Or have you decided that it’s natural light or no light at all? Can’t have anything messing with the tragic, mystical enigma image you’ve got going for you.”

 

A pack of matches were half-opened on the table, next to another cluster of candles. With a sharp hiss, Sebastian lit the match and easily caught the wicks alight.

 

“Believe it or not, a light bulb exploding isn’t the most delicate of sounds. Too many noise complaints will get me evicted.”

 

Sebastian glanced over his shoulder as Kurt stood in the bathroom door and efficiently ran a dark facecloth up along his jaw. His eyes closed as he tipped his head back and wiped gently at the long line of his throat.

 

The stinging burn of the matchstick flame licking his fingertips broke Sebastian from the sight of Kurt, pale against the darkness at his back. He cleared his throat, suddenly dry and prickling, starling Kurt from his clean-up.

 

“You can go-“ Kurt started, before his eyes darkened in the low light of the room and zeroed in on the couch. “Oh, Quinn.”

 

Instinctively Sebastian’s gaze snapped to the empty seat, fingers dropping the match into the melting candle wax. He couldn’t see any change, any indication that Quinn Fabray’s ghost was in the room- because she wasn’t.

 

Sebastian shook his head and kept his eyes on Kurt instead.

 

His eyes were sharp, pale and steely in the dim light of the candles. A kind of trapped, manic energy seemed to settle into the set of Kurt’s shoulders, the way his fingers twitched and his breathing visibly sped up.

 

Sebastian nearly knocked over the table, candles and all, when he realized the air in the apartment was freezing again.

 

“What- what in the hell did you do to the heat? Hummel-“

 

Kurt shushed him, holding up the hand with the blood smeared cloth. “Quinn? Can you hear me?”

 

The bedroom door slammed shut with a sharp bang, the candles flickering in the darkness. Kurt didn’t move from his spot, even as Sebastian stalked over to feel along the door frame and knob.

 

“Must have been the wind.”

 

Kurt sighed hard. “My window’s been stuck shut for over a year now. Just- be quiet. I don’t know what happened but she keeps whispering something. Shelby’s chaotic arrival earlier must have knocked her into a loop.”

 

Sebastian watched in disbelief as Kurt slowly walked forward to sit primly on the edge of his coffee table. Hesitantly, almost as if he were _afraid_ , Kurt reached out and gently cupped the empty air where someone as slight as Quinn’s shoulder might have been.

 

The room stood still, frozen on the intake of an anticipatory breath.

 

“I made a mistake.”

 

Sebastian let out the breath he’d been holding in a long, loud sigh. He was too tired for this crap. “Hummel, just let me take you to a hospital-“

 

“ _I made a mistake_ ,” Kurt’s voice was low, blank and monotonous, in the flickering light of the room. He sounded drained, mechanical and flat, the words awkward as if they weren’t his own.

 

His eyes- too bright just moments ago- were dark and dishwater dull. Sebastian felt the back of his neck prickle uncomfortably.   

 

“I made a mistake,” he repeated, like the stuck needle on his mother’s old record player. Sebastian pondered the idea of thumping him on the back, just to see if it would work, before he steeled himself to indulge in Kurt’s particular brand of crazy.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

Kurt’s arm twitched, his head rolling off to the side like a dolls. “I made a mistake. I almost did something bad. I thought I could hide it.”

 

Sebastian staunchly did not believe in ghosts. Cold spots were naturally occurring phenomena in his world. When you died, your brain let out one final blast of electricity and then generally, someone buried you.  Heaven was nothing more than worthless comfort.

 

There was no way Kurt was possessed in any way, shape or form, by Quinn’s ghost. Sebastian refused to believe it.

 

With the thrum of righteous anger in his hands, Sebastian gripped the back of Kurt’s shirt and yanked him over the top of the coffee table. A shock of something icy-hot shot up his palms as they tumbled to the floor. Sebastian's tailbone ached at the sudden drop.

 

Kurt gasped wetly, heart beat fluttering wildly where he’d settled haphazardly against Sebastian’s knees. His bare feet still hung limply across the top of the coffee table. Sebastian felt off somehow, his palms and fingers prickling and twitching, still fisted into the fine cloth of Kurt’s shirt. 

 

As one, they took a slow, deep breath and breathed a name.

 

“Lucy.”

 

* * *

 

“You look like shit, Smythe,” Santana said with a low whistle. “Did you and Anderson even go home last night? The unkempt caveman look really doesn’t work on either of you. What exactly is living on your upper lip?”

 

“Some of us are too busy solving cases to worry about mortal things like needing sleep,” Sebastian said with a dignified turn of his head. “It’s facial hair, Lopez. I thought you of all people would have been able to tell that.”

 

“Cute- you still have the mind to make primitive body jokes while looking like something Tubbs barfed up.” She gave him a quick once-over and wrinkled her nose. “That’s not why I’m subjecting myself to breathing the same inferior air as you.”

 

 “We can’t all be this beautiful and intelligent, Lopez. It’s okay- we all know you’ve come to bask in my majestic existence,” Sebastian stretched and caught a whiff of himself. Apparently the quick stop home for a change of clothing had done little to cover his bad need of a long, hot shower.

 

“Yeah, if by majestic you mean the nasty stench you’re emitting,” Santana eyed him sternly. “You might want to take advantage of the change room shower before Schue calls you into his office. Your BO alone is offensive enough for disciplinary action.”

 

She shook her head as Sebastian opened his mouth to reply. “Shut up- I’m here to tell you that I checked with Puckerman’s employer and he was out of state when a few of those letters were sent.”

 

Sebastian immediately flung himself to his feet. “Shit- did they let him out of lock-up yet? I’m going to have to burn rubber to get down there before he disappears-“

 

“Hold up, bean pole-“ Santana poked him in the chest with a sharply-filed, red-pained nail. “That’s not nearly enough evidence to get Puckerman out of the slammer. First of all, there’s nearly two dozen fingerprints and partials on the envelopes alone. The letters are clean but Sylvester went to the judge with the possibility that the letters and the murder and kidnapping might not be related.”

 

“Fuck- Judge Figgins is a pushover when it comes to Sue. I’m going to take a guess and say he upped the bail.”

 

Santana  shrugged. “As if that wasn’t a given. I gotta be honest though, Sue’s got a point. Most stalkers don’t actually make physical contact with their victims. Fewer still kill or kidnap their targets. Puckerman might still be our guy.”

 

“Then where’s Beth?” Blaine asked from the door way. His eyes were bloodshot, dark circles making his cheeks look grey in the light of the station. Even his hair- typically greased back and shiny- seemed lacklustre.

 

“Even if we can’t pin the kidnapping on him, there’s a good chance that if this goes to trial, Puckerman will be put away for murder. He has to know that.”

 

Sebastian pushed wearily at his eyes with his palms until his head ached from the starbursts appearing under his lids. “He’s already been locked up for a week. Beth’s two years old- she can’t fend for herself.”

 

“So he has an accomplice,” Santana said with a shrug. “Check out his phone records, interview his neighbours. If it’s not a room mate, it might be a significant other.”

 

“Puckerman doesn’t have any friends, the guy’s practically nomadic,” Sebastian said. “He’d only been at his last residence about six weeks because his latest employer is based in the city.”

 

“Childhood friends then? Relatives? A guy like that has to have some abandonment issues. His mother and sister still live in Ohio.” Santana shuffled quickly through her folder, tugging out the proper page and handing it over.

 

Blaine snatched it out of her hand before Sebastian could reach for it.

 

“I spoke with Quinn’s mother last night. She’s flying up from Ohio to take her daughter’s body home once she’s been cleared- what’s the likelihood of our three suspects having been from the same town?”

 

“And what’s Shelby’s connection to any of it?” Sebastian added, already logging into his computer. “Puckerman and Berry attended the same high school. William McKinley-“

 

“Fabray listed WMHS as her school from freshman to junior year,” Santana said, moving over to hop up and sit on the edge of Blaine’s desk.  “She transferred out of school during the second half of her senior year, home-schooled until she left for Yale in the fall.”

 

“There’s no record of Quinn Fabray having ever gone to WMHS,” Blaine said, hitting the backspace key hard. “There’s record of a Lucy Q. Fabray but our files say that Quinn had a younger sister.”

 

Sebastian swallowed hard, his throat tight with nausea. “Lucy? What years did she attend?”

 

Blaine curled over the keyboard, hunching closer to the screen as he scanned for an attendance year. “Um, the same as Puckerman and Berry. Wow. I guess it isn’t her sister.”

 

“Why would a girl like Quinn change her name and drop out of school after getting an acceptance letter to Yale?” Santana asked, voicing the question that was on all of their minds.

 

Sebastian wanted to thump his head against the desk when the answer came to him. “I’d have to hazard a guess that she left to have a _baby_. Beth’s just barely two years old.”

 

Blaine groaned. “We’re over-thinking this case. Maybe she was teased in school, maybe she just really hated her first name.”

 

“Enough to change it on all of her identification?” Santana arched a sceptical eyebrow at him. “That’s a little extreme. Maybe she just had something to hide.”

 

Sebastian shivered as he remembered Kurt’s foreboding words. ‘ _I made a mistake. I almost did something bad. I thought I could hide it.’_

 

Quinn certainly seemed to have something to hide, and from the overkill on her body, someone had figured it out.    

 

He shot Blaine a long, pointed look, steadfastly ignoring the way Santana’s gaze darted between the two of them. Sebastian wasn’t about to talk openly in front of any of the other detectives about Kurt and what Blaine believed he could do. They’d be laughed out on their asses, badgeless and unemployed.

 

He’d barely opened up his mouth when the door to the office was throw open and a tearful Rachel Berry stormed in. A rookie beat cop- Huttson or Hudson, Sebastian didn’t take the time to learn their names until they’d proved themselves and the gigantic oaf in his rookie blues still could manage to work the coffee pot in the lunch room more than five weeks into his stay at the precinct- stumbled in behind her, carrying her bright pink purse in his oversized hands.

 

“Rachel- I mean, Miss Berry- Sir, I tried to stop her but-“

 

Berry cut him off with a loud, hitching sob, her eyes wide and wet as she nearly tripped over her feet to clutch at the arm of Santana’s shirt.

 

“Quinn, I went to meet her for brunch this morning and her room was covered in police tape- they said that she’d been murdered!”

 

Blaine seemed to melt in the face of her sorrow. Santana tried to peel her clawed fingers off her shirt by touching as little skin as necessary. The hulking rookie slung the purse over his shoulder to gently pet at Berry’s trembling head.

 

“Oh, Rachel,” Blaine said softly, pulling her away from Santana and into a gentle hug. “I’m so sorry for your loss. We’re doing everything we can to find her killer, I promise you.”

 

Berry sniffled, flicking her fingers daintily under her eyes to wipe away the rebellious streaks of mascara. “I know but surely you must have some idea who her killer is. Otherwise, I have the utmost confidence that the NYPD would have put a police detail on my suite had my most valuable person been in any sort of danger.”

 

Blaine shared a horrified look with Sebastian, one Berry seemed to pick up on almost immediately.

 

“You- you didn’t think that the killer would come after me next?” She turned to clutch dramatically at the rookie’s arm as she looked around the room fearfully. “Am I in danger?”

 

Sebastian sighed, long and loud and irritably. He glanced up to squint at the rookie’s nametag and asked, “Hudson- how’d you like your first assignment?”

 

Hudson beamed back at him.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reason Sebastian didn't know that Quinn's first name was Lucy was because she'd gone through a lot of trouble to change it on all of her current ID. Even when it comes out that Quinn is Beth's mother, the adoption went through under the name Quinn Fabray- not Lucy. 
> 
> Because by then, Lucy had already nearly done something bad. Lucy needed to disappear. 
> 
> I could see WMHS still having her filed under Lucy because I've had my own issues with schools not updating their student files. To the point where my diploma was sent to my first address I'd ever listed at my high school. McKinley seems to canonly be full of that kind of fail.


End file.
